Modern communication networks may span across large geographical areas. To maintain, grow, and upgrade the networks, service providers employ teams of service field technicians and provide the technicians with portable network testing devices, which can be taken to local nodes and customer premises for troubleshooting and servicing the network.
As communication networks grow in complexity, so does test equipment. Depending on geographical area, more complex and versatile network testing devices may become costly enough to be attractive to thieves, who may steal the test equipment or even assault the technicians for it. Stolen test equipment may be resold on the black market to contractors not willing to pay top price for the newest test equipment.
A possibility of equipment theft has deterred many operators from purchasing premium test equipment. Instead, the operators may tend to purchase more easily replaceable equipment, because the operators know they will likely need to purchase the equipment regularly, to replace the ones that have been stolen. If the numbers of stolen network testing devices were to go down, network operators would be more willing to pay higher prices for the premium equipment, which is superior in quality, accuracy, and longevity.
Presently, to deter theft, portable network test equipment mostly relies on personal identification numbers (PIN) or biometric data. However, PIN and passwords may be forgotten, lost, or easily conveyed to known or unknown thieves. Biometric data readers, such as fingerprint scanners, retina scanners, or voice recognition systems, are rather complex and costly to purchase and maintain. In some cases, even biometric data may be acquired from the user. For example, a voice ID record may be obtained from the user.